Currently, there are two general approaches in allowing a user to control a drone to take photos and videos. First, the drone may be controller using a remote controller (RC) or other mobile device, such as a mobile phone or tablet. In these types of systems, a user must control the drone manually through physical interaction with the RC or mobile device. This approach provides several shortcomings. First, it requires hours or days or even months of practice for a user to become proficient in controlling the drone. Additionally, not only does the user have to control operation, i.e., flight, of the drone, but the user must also control the camera to capture pictures and/or video. Thus, the quality of the image or video is limited by not only the skills of controlling the drone but also the controller's photography or videography experience.
The second approach is an auto-follow feature. Using the auto-follow feature, the drone or aerial system chooses and locks onto a person and automatically captures pictures and/or video. Generally, this is the person that is operating the RC or mobile device, i.e., the “owner”, but may also be another person, such as a person wearing or being associated with a tracking device. This approach also has shortcomings. In general, the movement or drone instructions are relatively simple, i.e., follow the user while capturing pictures and/or video. Using this approach, the resulting pictures and/or video are limited, i.e., always the same or a single view. For example, this approach usually results in pictures and/or video that consists of all front-view, back-view or side-view pictures and/or video of the user. Furthermore, the distance between the drone and the target person is generally unchanged. That is, all of the pictures and/or video are either distant-shots, mid-shot or close-shot. Furthermore, the interaction is also not intuitive. The user needs to operate the drone on the smart phone and/or carry a device for tracking. Furthermore, the auto-follow feature is generally focused on, or locked onto, one person. This interaction is always locked to one person, and thus, does not work well for capturing images and/or video of groups of people, such as, dancers, people at a large gathering, team athletics, e.g., basketball.
The present invention is aimed at one or more of the problems identified above.